


Eidetic

by Linzerj



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Drabble, Gen, Stream of Consciousness, Temporary Character Death, descriptions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 22:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14798765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linzerj/pseuds/Linzerj
Summary: Stephen Strange is cursed to remember, no matter how much he wants to forget.





	Eidetic

**Author's Note:**

> Oops another angsty and sad Stephen Strange fic. Sorry not sorry. but yeah I feel like we need to address how Stephen has eidetic memory and keeps dying or witnessing the death of the universe and whatever, I mean, how is he still sane after all of that??? my poor magic man

Stephen Strange has an eidetic memory. It’s part of how he managed to get his MD and PhD at the same time. He studied some, sure – terms and locations of vertebrae are easy to memorize but concepts still require some thought and dedication and writing a thesis was more than just memorization – but lots of small concepts and terms were easily compartmentalized and stored away for future reference.

Many classmates, peers, and even professors were jealous of his eidetic memory. Some called it a method of cheating, envious of how Stephen didn’t need to study as hard as they did. Others likened it to a superpower, in awe at how someone could store that much information so easily in their brain.

Eidetic memory serves him well in his career as a surgeon, able to remember patients’ names and conditions without having to double-check anything. It was as important to Stephen’s career as his steady hands.

But then he found that an eidetic memory had its downfalls, too.

The accident happens, and Stephen is left with broken hands that will never be able to perform surgery again. But what makes it all worse is how he _remembers_. He remembers glancing up, and in that one split second realizing he was so _fucked_. He remembers the feeling of falling, and the crushing weight on his hands. He remembers his greatest failure down to the last minute detail, and try as he might, he can never forget.

Then comes Kamar-Taj. Then comes sorcery, and he occupies his mind with memorizing new spells, and learning the science behind the magic. He becomes fluent in a dozen dead and obscure languages. He studies, and pushes past his doubts, and harnesses magic and practices and practices and practices.

His hands still shake, the scars still show, but he’s beginning to think that maybe this sorcery thing isn’t so bad.

But then the universe throws more at him. Next comes Kaecilius, and Dormammu, and the encroaching Dark Dimension. Next comes death and death and _death and death_ –

_Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain!_

They go through the song and dance a thousand times, and Stephen remembers every single detail of every single death. Sometimes Dormammu would try the same thing twice or thrice or even more times before moving on to the next method of death. Stephen knows what it’s like to disintegrate, to be literally torn to shreds, to be impaled, to be crushed, to be buried alive, to have his limbs torn off, to suffocate –

_Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain!_

He has nightmares for months. (He still gets nightmares, and he’s pretty sure Wong knows this, but he refuses to admit it aloud.) Every time it’s those deaths replaying, over and over, sometimes merging but the details are always there –

_Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain!_

It’s then that Stephen truly starts to wonder if eidetic memory is a gift or a curse. It could be both. It could be neither.

He engrosses himself in his studies again, to take his mind off his own deaths, to cram new memories into his head to drown out the old. Thor and Loki coming to Earth is an interesting encounter, and he thinks on it for a few days, remembering everything about their arrival and departure.

(Maybe he should have stepped in when he sensed another dark presence emerge? Ah, but the Bifrost had come for them soon thereafter, and Stephen was happier here on Earth than in space, thanks.)

(Of course, he’ll be off to space soon enough.)

Bruce Banner crashes through his roof less than a month after that, bringing a tale of the destruction of Asgard and Loki saving people and Thor being gone and a mad Titan named Thanos coming for the Infinity Stones.

It gives him something to do, at least.

So Stephen goes and summons Tony Stark, tries to convince him to get the Avengers back together, when they’re very rudely interrupted by two aliens who really need to back the fuck off his planet.

Except the Squidward-one, Maw, is more cunning than Stephen anticipates, and he’s knocked out and abducted, and then rescued by Stark and Spider-Man.

(And they’re in space. Oh, joy.)

And in the subsequent hours leading to Titan, leading to the confrontation with Thanos, Stephen Strange decides to look forward in time, as the Ancient One once did, to try and see all the possible outcomes of the battle.

There are…a lot. Fourteen million six hundred and five, to be precise.

They only win in one. But Stephen remembers how events in every single possible timeline unfold. A lot involve him dying again, sometimes in new ways even Dormammu hadn’t thought of. They all die over and over and over and over again –

_~~Dormammu~~ Thanos, I’ve come to bargain!_

And even in victory, there is his death. (Temporary, but, still.)

After they lose, and Thanos heads toward Earth, Stephen has a moment to reflect on years worth of memories of dying and dying and _dying_ –

“Tony, this was the only way.”

Stephen Strange has an eidetic memory. He remembers where every bone in the human spine should go. He remembers how he crashed his car and lost his hands and career and old life. He remembers a thousand deaths at the hands of Dormammu. He remembers 14,000,604 deaths (of the universe and himself) at the hands of Thanos. He remembers the sensation of fading away, being turned to dust. He remembers the look on Tony Stark’s face as the Iron Man watches his friends and allies and almost-son crumble into nothing.

Stephen Strange is cursed to remember it all, every minute detail, even if he desperately wants to wake up and forget, forget, _forget_.


End file.
